Finding a voice
http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2017-05-01/language [www.economist.com]
2017-01-05 19:04
Computers have got much better at translation, voice recognition and speech synthesis, says Lane Greene. But they still don’t understand the meaning of language
It’s been 50 years since a National Academy of Sciences report that language-technology research had overpromised and underdelivered. But now it’s all about the deep learning and neural nets.
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, an Israeli MT pioneer, realised that “the pen is in the box” and “the box is in the pen” would require different translations for “pen”: any pen big enough to hold a box would have to be an animal enclosure, not a writing instrument.
“Who plays Thor in ‘Thor’?” ... Siri came up with an unexpected reply: “I don’t see any movies matching ‘Thor’ playing in Thor, IA, US, today.”
A bit more on the lifestyle and privacy changes brought about by voice control: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21713836-casting-magic-spell-it-lets-people-control-world-through-words-alone-how-voice